


For Your Eyes Only

by BriaMaria



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, lots of sappiness too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-24 00:38:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12001287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BriaMaria/pseuds/BriaMaria
Summary: Harry and Louis had never broken the two-week rule before. When they did, we got If I Could Fly and Home.





	For Your Eyes Only

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt to pinch-hit for If I Could Fly in the MITAM fic exchange! And look at the girl who never writes canon, writing canon. But this song feels like so much irl H&L's that I wanted to give it to them.
> 
> Obviously, this is just a headcanon! I know nothing except that they definitely kiss slowly on Sunday mornings. That part is #confirmed.
> 
> Please go check out the rest of the MITAM fics!! They're fantastic. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy :) xo

Sleeping was the hardest part of missing Louis.

During the day, Harry could distract himself so that the pain was a dull throb, one he was used to and could tuck away during meetings and studio time and pap walks. At night, when it was just him and the shadows and the moonlight on a half-empty bed, it was harder to pretend it didn’t hurt.

Harry laid an open palm where the boy should be, but wasn’t. His fingers pressed into the cool sheets to find the divots in the mattress and he wished. He wished Louis was there, and he wished life was easier sometimes.

Most of the times it was. When they were on tour, when they were on break, they made the hiding and the separation work.

Tour was simpler in some ways, more difficult in others. Sometimes, that throb turned sharp and deadly, a steel knife slipped between the ribcage, when Harry remembered he couldn’t touch, he couldn’t laugh, he couldn’t watch. Not when they were on stage. But on tour, he always had Louis at night. Their bodies warm and sated, slotting together from years of getting used to sleeping entangled. He could feel Louis’ heartbeat against his palm.

On breaks, it was simpler in some ways, more difficult in others. The day was theirs. Even if they just spent it cuddled on the couch watching shit television, it was theirs. Fingers sought skin easily, trailing over exposed wrists and knuckles and necks. Louis would dig his feet beneath Harry’s thighs, and Harry would slap his joggers-clad arse as Louis went by for more tea. On break, Harry could touch, he could laugh, he could watch.

But then there were stretches like these ones. When either through necessity or stupidity, they were apart for days on end.

_“Two weeks,” Louis said years ago when they looked ahead and only saw separation. “We’ll never go more than two weeks, yeah, love?”_

Suddenly, the bed was too hot, the blankets suffocating. Harry kicked them off and rolled to his feet, slipping on a pair of black boxers as he stood. He pushed his tangled mess of curls into a semblance of a bun while he padded across the floor into the hallway.

The house was dark, quiet. In a different mood, Harry would have loved it. There was almost nothing better than the rush of tour, the screams, the adrenalin, the pounding music that became the pulse in their very bodies by the end of the show. But he cherished this sanctuary, cherished the silence and how it pressed against his eardrums in a different way than the noise did.

But he was not in the mood to be appreciative. So he ignored the calm that inevitably swept through him as his fingers trailed over the edges of the picture frames that lined the wall on his way downstairs. Didn’t smile at the familiar grin that caught the corner of his eye, that moment in time, that spark of joy, captured for eternity.  

The kitchen was one of his favorite rooms in the house. When they’d been hunting for a place, and they’d walked into the warm, sunny space, Louis had slipped his hand into Harry’s and squeezed. _This is it, they said to each other without needing to speak._ Harry had always loved to cook for Louis. The simple act was intimate, domestic, and Harry craved it like oxygen.

He especially liked when he was at the stove and Louis would come up behind him. The boy would step closer so their bodies were flush, Louis’ groin cradling Harry’s arse, all the while sliding a hand beneath Harry’s shirt to press against his belly. His pinky would slip beneath the waistband of Harry’s jeans as he went up on tiptoes to whisper in Harry’s ears, _“Can it sit?”_

After flipping off the burners, they’d race upstairs, though they wouldn’t always make it to the bedroom. One time they collapsed on the hardwood landing, giddy and laughing and unable to keep their hands away from muscle and skin, like they were still teenagers. Their hips had shifted together, desperately seeking friction. It had been horrible and uncomfortable and breathless and amazing at once.

But Harry also liked the times when they were quiet. When he puttered about and Louis poured them the sparkling wine he hated just because he knew Harry loved it. He liked when Louis was soft and bundled in an oversized jumper, cupping a warm mug of tea. The boy would perch on one of the counters and open his legs for Harry to dart in for a kiss. On sleepy Sunday mornings, the sunlight would stream in, turning their little world golden, turning them golden. Harry would linger, on those mornings, in the space between Louis’ thighs, his fingers toying with the hem where it met skin. It was slow and sensual and never really edged toward dirty because the sausages would burn and the eggs would turn cold and sometimes, sometimes, it was just enough to have lips brush lips and tongue slide against tongue.

The kitchen wasn’t golden and warm right now. It was cold, dark and haunted. Harry leaned against the island and watched those ghosts, those memories of the two of them, dance in the shadows.

Because they’d argued here, as well. During the hardest time when Harry had first realized how difficult it was not to touch, not to laugh, not to watch. They talked all the time, they always had. From the very beginning, it was as if something had just clicked for Harry. Secrets spilled out from trembling lips as they cuddled in their bunks, inside jokes became a language only they could speak, “me too” turned funny after the first few hundred times it was said. They talked. They talked. They talked.

Just. They hadn’t realized what was coming, and they hadn’t learned how to talk about that, the important thing. They hadn't realized the scars that it would leave.

They had been so young, so sure of who they were to each other. _I’d marry you, Harry._ The first time Louis had said it had been under the cover of a camera and a joke, easily brushed aside. The second time, it had just been them, Louis tracing the ring he’d just slipped on Harry’s finger, catching along the letters inscribed in silver. A promise, a vow.

Even with the ring, even with the promise, they still hadn’t learned to talk about this, though. So Harry would twist the metal until it caught against skin as he watched Louis scrounge for this or that in the fridge and he would wish he wasn’t so scared. Louis would catch his eye, see the truth there, and ignore it anyway. Because when you were young, and the world was harsh and always seemed to be against you, sometimes it was easier to pretend that everything was just golden moments on Sunday mornings.

So they wrote songs instead. Harry found it easier to talk that way, He wrote about that night and that fridge. He wrote about broken hearts, not because his was broken but because he couldn’t stand the idea that it could be. He wrote about wanting something great, not because what they had between them wasn’t, but because it hurt not to be able to show that.

The songs weren’t easy for Louis. But they listened and they learned and as they got older they figured out how to talk about it. Of course, there were still fights and tears and silences where they couldn’t find the words to say even though they could always find words to say to each other. It was one of those times that Louis came up with his promise.

_Never more than two weeks, yeah, love?_

They had never broken it before. But today was the seventeenth day and the space in Harry that belonged just to Louis cried out. He missed his boy.

Harry pushed away from the counter leaving the ghosts in the kitchen behind. On the way out the backdoor he grabbed his journal. It was April and too cold to be outside at night in only pants, but his skin was flushed hot from the bed and the memories, and he welcomed the chills that ran along his arms.  

If the kitchen was Harry’s favorite, this was Louis’. The porch wasn’t large, it couldn’t be in London, but they’d set up soft chairs and a fire pit and fairy lights that Harry didn’t bother with now. The garden behind it was their own secret world. In a life where privacy was sacred, they’d created a sanctuary of flowers and trees and hidden spaces that only they knew about. Harry settled into Louis’ chair. If the boy were here and found Harry in it, he’d either start chucking things at Harry’s head or crawl into his lap and Harry would have giggled, charmed, either way. But he wasn’t here.

_Never more than two weeks, yeah, love?_

Resting the journal on the table by his elbow, Harry uncapped the pen he kept tucked along its pages. The sharp point of it bit into the soft flesh of his palm as he drew the familiar shape. The _L_ was barely visible in the darkness but something tight within him eased at the sight of it. He pressed the blunt edge of his nail against the straight downward stroke.

Before the tattoos, before they’d inked permanent promises on themselves to help make the scars easier to deal with, they’d had this. So tiny and careless. They hadn’t even been together, not really, the first time Louis had taken his hand, cradling it in his slightly sweaty palm, and dug the tip of a brio into flesh. Harry had stared at it for far too long, and when he’d looked up Louis had been watching him.

Maybe that first one hadn’t been so careless, after all.

Harry brought his hand up to his chest so the _L_ rested above his heartbeat, and he wondered if Louis felt it.

Because it was night, Harry let himself wonder. During the day the responsibilities, the expectations, the plans they never quite seemed to have control over, weighed heavy on their shoulders so that their spines curved beneath it all. During the day it never seemed like an option to just. Stop.

But night was for the dreams, for the what ifs, for the maybes. If Louis were here, in the chair next to Harry’s positioned close enough so that their fingers could intertwine at their leisure, so that their feet could tangle on the ottoman when they wanted, would he glance over at Harry? Would he whisper, _“Would you give it up? All of this. Would you give it up?”_

For Harry, this had always been the goal. He’d loved entertaining from a young age. He liked making people happy, making them laugh, hamming it up in the spotlight. Not everything about what they had now was perfect. But it was close enough to a dream he’d thought impossible while singing into hairbrushes in front of the mirror when he was twelve that he felt blessed to even be part of the ride.

Would he give it up? His pulse fluttered beneath his palm, where the _L_ had probably smeared against his skin. He knew his answer with the surety of his next breath.

***

He didn’t know how long he’d sat there, thinking of choices made and caramel skin and blue eyes, and that moment years ago when he’d looked up and saw the rest of his life waiting in the face of a stranger. But when the sky shifted from black velvet to deep blue to light pink, he went inside.

After putting some water on, he grabbed Louis’ mug and held it between gentle hands, rubbing his thumb over the chip in its rim. Neither of them knew how it got there, but they both insisted it gave the cup character. Sometimes it was the scars that made you realize just how strong something was.  

He made the tea the way Lou liked, then grabbed his phone before pushing back outside onto the porch.

It was still chilly, so he pulled a blanket over him and pretended that burrowing down into its softness was an adequate substitute to Louis’ arms.

It would be late in LA. Which meant there was a chance Harry could catch Louis when he was coming back from the club. Or maybe he’d already be home. Those were the best times. When they weren’t struggling to hear over background noise, when they didn’t have to couch what they were saying in careful words in case someone was eavesdropping.

He thumbed to recent calls and then brought the phone to his ear. It only rang twice before Louis answered.

“H.”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of Louis’ voice just saying his name. Everything felt so raw, and he blamed the lack of sleep and too many thoughts of broken promises and empty beds.

“Lou,” he whispered. It had been less than twelve hours since they’d last talked, but it felt longer.

There was shifting on the other side, like Louis was sitting up in bed. Harry pictured him, stripped down to his pants, rumpled and drowsy, pushing a hand through tousled hair. “Love. Talk to me. Are you alright?”

It was stupid, so stupid, to be upset. They were grown men who were used to a long-distance relationship. In another life, in another relationship, maybe Harry would have blinked back tears so as not to rock a ship in already rough waters.

But this was Louis. The one person to whom he could show his entire heart, no matter how stupid or embarrassing or silly. With Louis he could let his guard down, with Louis he had no defenses.

“I miss you,” Harry said, swallowing hard as moisture gathered at the corners of his eyes. “God it feels.” He stopped.

Louis took a steadying breath, but didn’t press Harry to continue. He was used to Harry’s cadence, the way he needed to pick his words lest they tumble out into something he didn’t recognize.

“It feels like I forget who I am, sometimes, when we're apart,” Harry finally continued. And it was stupid. He knew who he was. He knew who he was without Louis needing to be there. They weren’t teenagers anymore.

But it was nighttime, and sometimes it did feel like that.

The problem was, he was something to so many people. Some of those things were amazing, some of those things were the best parts of his life. Brother, son, friend, confidante. Some of them hurt, though, and they seeped in even when he tried to lock them out of his heart. Liar. Manipulator. Womanizer. Fame-hungry wannabe rockstar.

People saw him as they wanted to see him. They filled in the blank spaces he kept hidden from the world, that he kept hidden from everyone but Lou, with whatever they wanted. They looked at him and they thought they knew who he was.

But Louis looked at Harry and saw him. Saw the scars and the beauty and the dirty socks and the talent and the stubbornness and the kindness and the missteps and the successes. And he was gentle with all of it.

_“I want to know everything,” Louis had told him years and years ago on one of those first nights they spent together. They hadn’t even moved beyond kissing then, but their mouths were plump and raw from their eagerness. “I love when you give me pieces of your heart.”_

_“For your eyes only,” Harry whispered back into his lips._  

“Love,” Louis murmured now, sleep still in his voice. “I’m sorry. I wish I was there. I wish I could hold you.”

It wasn’t Louis’ fault any more than it was Harry’s. Plans had changed, commitments were made that couldn’t be dodged or broken. They’d talked for a long time about it when they realized what was going to happen, and they both agreed to do what needed to be done. _Never more than two weeks, yeah, love?_

“I know,” Harry said. He glanced down at the _L_ on his hand and pressed it against his chest again. “Do you feel that?”

It didn’t make sense, of course it didn’t. But Harry asked anyway.

There was a pause, and then soft, so soft, Harry wondered if he imagined it. “Your heart. I feel it.”

A tear slipped over his lashes and slid down his cheek. “I feel your heart, Lou. In my heart.”

They didn’t say anything for a long time after that. They didn’t need to. Harry watched the sun wake up, and the sky turn rose. The rays chased away the ghosts and the memories and the sadness that lingered in all the soft spots in his body.

It didn’t feel as hard in the morning, when there wasn’t a half-empty bed, and an empty chair and a mug that would have gone unused had Harry not used it. They’d see each other in a week, and when they did, fingers would seek skin and arms would be held wide and smiles would come even when there was nothing prompting them. Everything would click into place in the same way their lips would slide against each other’s, familiar and precious.   

For now all that mattered was his boy on the other end of the phone, on the other end of the world, who had sat for hours just listening to Harry breathe.

“Hey, H."

“Yeah?” Harry slurred, his own voice thick with exhaustion and tears that had long-since dried. He wondered if he had dozed a while in the quiet, in-between moments.

“I wrote a song today,” Louis said, and Harry heard the smile in his voice. “About me. And you. Us.”

Harry smiled, the first one of the night. “Oh yeah? Can’t wait to hear it. What’s it called?”

“Home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really jazzed about this bed picture, so if you'd like to reblog the [ fic post](http://briannamarguerite.tumblr.com/post/165045216242/if-i-could-fly-for-your-eyes-only-3k) here it is :) And the [ MITAM ](https://dimpled-halo.tumblr.com/post/165008638484/made-in-the-am-fic-fest) one as well!


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